Big Empty
by dietplainlite
Summary: A quiet car zooms down a dark country road, bound for London, away from a nightmare.


**To my regular readers, I wanted to post a quick note to say that I am determined to update my works in progress. I've just been having a lot of trouble with them. Yes, all of them. I wasn't writing anything for a while so right now I'm glad that I'm at least inspired to write one shots, even if that puts the other stories on the back burner. I hope you understand and stick with me.**

**Thank you to Lono for looking this over for me.**

The headlights cut through the thick darkness of the dusty country lane, revealing three hundred feet of road ahead and the gorse and heather grown tall on either side. Every couple of miles a panicked rabbit will leap across the road, its eyes glowing briefly.

In the car the radio is off. No one speaks. The hum of the engine remains steady as the straight path affords Sherlock the luxury of never having to decrease his speed or shift gears.

Every ten minutes he cracks the window, the pressure change making his ears pop as the wet night air streams into the car. The passenger in the back pulls Sherlock's coat closer around her and the passenger next to him curses softly before cracking his own window.

His lip is no longer bleeding but the cuts along the inside of his mouth are raw and sore, his tongue swollen from having bitten it when he was knocked to the ground. The cigarettes do nothing to alleviate the metallic taste. Neither does water. There are four empty bottles at John's feet. He can't have another or he'll have to urinate and they cannot stop until they're back in London.

Molly pretends to sleep but when Sherlock glances at her, huddled in the back seat underneath his coat, he sees the dark gleam of her opened eyes staring straight ahead. He should send John back to assess her injuries again.

He flicks his cigarette through the crack, embers streaming briefly past the window. He catches her eye as he looks in rear view to see where the butt landed. She shakes her head.

Sherlock leans forward, rolls his neck and shoulders, and presses on.

* * *

Three and a half years ago an online flirtation led to three dates, an unsatisfying shag, and humiliating deductions from Sherlock Holmes. Now, with her forehead pressed against the cool window of a dark car hurtling through the Cornish moors, Molly pulls Sherlock's coat to her nose and breathes in his scent. It will never not be comforting, but in this case it's more to block the smell of the blood on her t shirt and jeans than to revel in the complex and so familiar mix of scents embedded in the fabric. Some of the blood is hers but most of it belongs to that sweet young man who complimented her nose and tolerated her taste in television all while planning the annihilation of the man she loved.

One week ago that man, the one she loved (loves) had slipped from her life forever. One week ago she'd walked into a nightmare in the staff room, her shock at seeing a dead man's face on the computer screen only eclipsed by the horror of Jim Moriarty stepping out of the shadows a moment later.

Twenty four hours ago she had killed Jim Moriarty, the passage of time marked by her careful observation of the stages of death. Even in full rigor she couldn't bring herself to be sure. She'd been so sure before

Not long after Moriarty's skin began changing color, after Molly had given up ever chancing on the right code to escape, the door to the windowless room burst open. Light poured in from the corridor, but Molly's eyes had become so accustom to the lone bare low wattage bulb swinging from the ceiling, that she couldn't make out anything of her rescuers but their silhouettes. She didn't recognize it as a rescue attempt at all, but another attack. She'd struck out at the first figure, swinging the bright pink plastic weapon and connecting with his thigh, slicing through the fabric of his trousers but thankfully not drawing blood. When he'd tried to disarm her, the self-defense training kicked in and she'd thrown him to the ground and pinned him, knee on his chest and shiv to his throat after getting in a few good punches.

She gasped and dropped the weapon as another set of hands pulled her off. She kicked and screamed until the first man said her name. She went still, afraid to look up, convinced she'd died and these were the final desperate imaginings of a dying brain.

Sherlock Holmes had left her flat the night before her kidnapping, taking with him all hope and leaving her this time not with the secret of his continuing life but of his imminent death.

"My exile was pre-empted," Sherlock said as he stood and brushed himself off. He grabbed the hanging light with his gloved hand and pointed it around the room as he took everything in, eyes darting back and forth between Moriarty's body and Molly with increasing alarm.

"Everything's going to be okay," John said. He relaxed his hold on her, but gripped her once again as her knees gave out and her consciousness slipped away.

When she woke up, she was angry. Angry at Jim for being so kind as to provide her with basic needs, including the toothbrush she'd turned into a shiv. Angry at Sherlock and John for taking so long that the shiv became necessary and not just a way to pass the time by sharpening it. Angry that Sherlock had taken just the amount of time Jim had expected him to take. True, he'd planned for Sherlock to discover Molly's lifeless body, but once again he'd underestimated her. So add that to list of things to be angry about. Jim fucking Moriarty's low opinion of her. He thought she'd be so easy to get rid of that he hadn't even brought any minions in on his plans.

Mostly, though, Molly is angry that she's no better than any of them, now.

She knows about John and the cabbie. She knows about Sherlock and Magnussen. She knows who Mary was before she was Mary. Or she knows as much as the rest of them do.

Perhaps now she's well and truly part of the club. (How pissed must Mary be right now, stuck at home?) Is there a secret handshake Molly needs to learn? Will she get a decoder ring?

Her sudden laughter sends Sherlock's eyes to the mirror again and John's head swiveling to peer over the seat.

She shakes her head again and presses her head to the glass. What kind of doctor is John, anyway, not carrying any strong sedatives in his bag?

* * *

John turns to look at Molly again. Her eyes are closed but her posture indicates she's nowhere near sleep. He curses himself for not keeping his bag stocked. He's been-distracted. Not a single lorazepam tablet left, or even any codeine to give her, just Paracetamol and a big dose of antibiotics.

He'd wanted to stop at a hotel for the night so Molly could wash up and rest, and he could examine her injuries in a clean environment. He could have written her prescriptions for whatever she needed. But Sherlock had insisted on driving straight through to London, as if it wouldn't really be over until Molly was back in the city in her flat.

John looks over at his friend, leaned forward so far his chest is nearly touching the steering wheel. Sherlock hasn't slept more than a few hours in a week, and it's beginning to show in ways it rarely does, with dark circles and unruly hair and wrinkled second day shirts.

As soon as the text came in making it clear she had been kidnapped, Sherlock threw himself into finding her with the same fervor he approached all cases where there was a life at stake. Of course it's always been obvious how deeply Sherlock cares for Molly, even if the exact nature of those feelings isn't so obvious. John would never have expected him to take her case lightly, but he also never expected him to be so visibly _affected_ by it.

For all Sherlock's crackling energy and brusqueness, there were no gleeful exclamations comparing the case to various holidays. No declarations of his own brilliance. He went around looking...lost, afraid, and impossibly young.

John had seen that look before, the night at the pool when John revealed himself, after Sherlock got over his initial shock and fear of betrayal. He'd seen immediately after Sherlock ended Magnussen's life. The look meant he wasn't having fun anymore.

Last night he'd found Sherlock staring at the fire in his flat. He made tea while waiting for Sherlock to acknowledge his presence. The detective finally looked up when John went over and nudged him in the hand with a mug.

"It's not your fault, you know," John said.

"I know it's not—" Sherlock stopped and looked at the floor, then held his hand out for the mug of tea. "Thank you."

Before they finished their tea, the last piece of information came in and everything fell into place. Sherlock practically threw his mug down on his way out, John following him into the damp night and a waiting car.

* * *

When they finally hit the A30, Sherlock presses the accelerator to the floor. As he shifts gears, he catches John looking at the speedometer. Sherlock sighs and cracks the window again, but when he reaches for the pack in the central console he finds it empty.

"Molly," he says, the first word spoken in the car since they'd pulled away from the crime scene, leaving Mycroft's people to deal with the body.

The pathologist looks at him but doesn't respond.

"Will you hand me the cigarettes in my left inside coat pocket?"

"Okay," comes the quiet reply, an ordinary exchange as if they are on an ordinary road trip. She opens the pack before handing it to him, her fingers brushing his palm as she drops it into his upturned hand.

And then he can't breathe.

He pulls the car onto the shoulder and stumbles out, mindless of the dirt on his already ruined trousers as he kneels in the weeds and vomits. It's all water and bile. He's vaguely aware of the sting of gravel in his palms as the heaving lurches him forward.

John is at his side in moments and he hears the rear door of the car open.

"Stay in the car, Molly," John says. "You can't put any weight on your ankle yet." He kneels beside Sherlock and puts his hands on his shoulders. "I'm driving from here out. And we're stopping the next time there's services. Don't argue. We don't have to stay the night but we're getting you both some food, yeah?"

"Okay," Sherlock says and allows his friend to help him to the car.

John looks around and stretches. "Since we're stopped, I'm gonna go see a man about a horse." He walks into the darkness behind the car and Sherlock slides into the back seat with Molly. She's on the other side of the car, his coat lying between them. The engine idles and two cars pass. She takes another bottle of water from the package on the floorboard and hands it to him.

Three more cars pass and Sherlock looks out the rear window to make sure John hasn't gotten into trouble. He's in the same place, about twenty feet from the car, his phone screen illuminating his face as he types out a text.

Sherlock peels the label off of the bottle , his fingers damp from the condensation. He folds the soggy paper into a tight square.

"I'm sorry," he says.

"For what?"

"Getting you into this."

"Oh," she says. She tucks her feet up on the seat and pulls his coat around her again. "How long have we known each other?"

"Seven years, three months and twenty two days."

"I know what being your friend means. Not that I ever want anything like this to happen again…" She chokes back a sob. She takes a deep breath. "But…it's okay."

"Don't accept it if you aren't ready. I mean that."

Their eyes meet across the seat and she nods. "Okay."

Three more cars pass before the driver's side door opens and John hops into the car. "Are you getting in the front, Sherlock or am I playing chauffer?"

Sherlock looks to Molly again. She shrugs and burrows further into his coat, resting her head against the door.

"I'm good back here," he says.

John nods, tips an imaginary hat and puts the car into gear, merging smoothly into early morning traffic as the eastern horizon shows its first flush of grey.


End file.
